Housing starts plummeted a whopping 11.9% in March from February. This was only a surprise to the analysts who had forecast a 5.2% drop. The homebuilders said "Are you kidding? Have you seen my inventories? You're lucky it didn't drop 100%" Meanwhile, CPI rose .3% in March, but only .2% excluding food and energy. This puts the annualized rate at 4.0%, and 2.4% excluding food and energy. Remember when Bernake first took office and said he was going to target a band for inflation? I'm pretty sure we've blown through the high band at this point and the guy is easing. This should clearly explain why a.) the dollar continues to get destroyed and b.) the price of oil, gold, copper, silver, and everything in my cupboard is skyrocketing.
In earnings news, JPM matched analysts estimates by posting a 50% drop in net income. Fabulous. Wells Fargo beat analysts estimates by posting an 11% drop in net income, a modest drop considering that Wells is a large mortgage lender. Hats off to Wells Fargo for not getting sucked into the no-doc lending frenzy and avoiding the CDO debacle. There's a good reason why Warren Buffet loves this stock. Because when everybody is blowing out, the few who are still standing get to reap the benefits of the recovery.
Wednesday, April 16, 2008
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4 comments:
You wouldn't happen to have a vested interest in WF would you?
As a matter of fact, I do.
This blog is too biased for me....I'd own a 1000 shares of google before I'd own anything Buffett likes...he's over the hill and so is Wells! Wonder if they'll have online statements anytime soon. I'll call the switchboard and ask.....hey K10 it's me G44 just stirring it up....
Love that GOOOOOOOOGGGGLLLEEE...only up 80k so far...back to 700....free coin...
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